Review: When Brute Force Fails: How to have less crime and less punishment

from Robert H. Frank's review in the New York Times:

Law enforcement policy in the United States rests implicitly on the “rational actor” model of traditional economics, which holds that people take only those actions whose benefits exceed their costs.

This model says that crime will be deterred if the expected punishment is strong enough — a prediction that has not been borne out in practice. Although long sentences are now common and the incarceration rate is five times what it was during most of the 20th century, the crime rate is still two and a half times the average of 1950-62.

Most crimes in the United States are committed by long-term repeat
offenders, a majority of whom are eventually caught. One of every 100
adults in the United States is now behind bars; many are serving
lengthy sentences. The crimes they committed clearly did not “pay” in
any objective sense of the term.

Why, then, did they commit
them? The short answer is that most criminals are not the dispassionate
rational actors who populate standard economic models. They are more
like impulsive children, blinded by the temptation of immediate reward
and largely untroubled by the possibility of delayed or uncertain
punishment.

The evidence suggests that when hardened criminals
are reasonably sure that they will be caught and punished swiftly, even
mild sanctions deter them. But not even the prospect of severe
punishment is effective if offenders think they can get away with their
crimes.

One way to make apprehension and punishment more likely
is to spend substantially more money on law enforcement. In a time of
chronic budget shortfalls, however, that won’t happen.

But Mr.
Kleiman suggests that smarter enforcement strategies can make existing
budgets go further. The important step, he says, is to view enforcement
as a dynamic game in which strategically chosen deterrence policies
become self-reinforcing. If offense rates fall enough, a tipping point
is reached. And once that happens, even modest enforcement resources
can hold offenders in check.